No. 17.
Lieut.-Colonel McCleverty to His Excellency Governor Grey.

I have to report to your Excellency that I have been engaged lately in endeavouring to arrange the Port Nicholson question of Native cultivations; but I am apprehensive, from a conversation I had with Colonel Wakefield on the 4th of this month, that any arrangement with respect to the removal of Natives from cultivations on country sections belonging to Europeans will not be final as to the difficulties attendant on the question of the Port Nicholson grant.

From that conversation, I understood that Colonel Wakefield would not advise the acceptance of a grant unless the Natives at Te Aro are either obliged, or their acquiescence purchased, to relinquish their pa at the head of the bay, which occupies the site of the intended Customhouse, and two town sections purchased by settlers. I therefore conceive it will be necessary to ascertain at once all the objections on the part of Colonel Wakefield to the grant under Mr. Spain's award, in order to obtain their removal, if possible, with the acquiescence of the Natives: to no other course can I give my assistance without a willing concession by them, and, should that be obtained, the sum required to purchase it would far exceed that which I could recommend to your Excellency.